Stand Tall

1809 - 1865

The answer can be narrowed down to just three areas: strong belief in his country, unwavering courage and unbelievable persistence.

Young Abe never really had much of a formal education, only a year or so, just enough to learn a little reading, writing and ciphering. Although he had a meager education he had a burning desire to learn all he could and began to borrow and read great books. Although his family probably had only one book, the bible, he managed to travel across the countryside borrowing books such as Aesop’s Fables, History of the United States, Pilgrim’s Progress and Robinson Crusoe.

In his late teens, Lincoln worked as a ferryman on the Ohio River and later became a storekeeper in New Salem, Illinois. He also worked as a surveyor, postmaster, and held a series of additional odd jobs. He later served as a volunteer captain in the Black Hawk War when a local disturbance broke out.

Returning back home to New Salem, Lincoln ran for state legislature and lost. He then bought a store, which failed, leaving him heavily in debt. With strong persistence, Lincoln ran again for legislature and won and served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives.

In 1836, Lincoln studied hard and eventually earned his license to practice law and thus began his up and down career as a lawyer. The townsfolk soon started calling him “Honest Abe” because of his sincere efforts to pay off his earlier debts, which took several years.

Lincoln was defeated many, many times throughout his political career. Eventually though, in 1860, he earned the highest office in the land, the President of the United States during the unsettled time of the Civil War.

He held strong to his conviction of holding the nation together through the preservation of the Union. With the never changing belief that all men are created equal, Lincoln fought for and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 which abolished slavery in the United States.

Four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln visited the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a cemetery for the victims of the great battle and delivered his famous Gettysburg Address.

He closed the speech with the following words:

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from their honored dead we take increased devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government – of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”